A solicitor has been ordered to pay a £15,000 fine after failing to spot a ‘sophisticated’ deception involving loans worth £464,000 which bore ‘hallmarks of fraud’.
Paul Edmund Levy, admitted in September 1999, was a solicitor at international firm Singhania & Co between September and December 2019 when he acted in two loan transactions, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal records.
The first loan was for the sum of £199,000. The tribunal heard solicitors acting for the client ‘changed without explanation mid-transaction’. Levy was asked to send the loan moneys to a trust corporation and two people and not to a solicitor’s client account, as stipulated in the facility agreement.
In another loan of around £265,000, the solicitors ostensibly acting for the client were ‘imposters’, the SDT found. Levy was asked to send the loan money to a company which was not the borrower and not to a solicitor’s client account.
Regarding both loans, Levy accepted that he failed to identify and appropriately respond to multiple warning signs or indicators of potential fraud and money laundering.
The SDT said: ‘By his failings and whether or not his actions were deliberate, Mr Levy effectively facilitated transactions that bore hallmarks of fraud and/or money laundering. Failing to show such care and attention to be expected of a reasonably competent solicitor would undermine the trust and confidence that the public would place in a solicitor.’
In mitigation, Levy pointed out that his client had suffered no financial loss, on the basis that charges were registered against properties and his clients were protected by professional indemnity insurance against fraud. Public confidence was not impacted because the harm caused was hypothetical, he said.
Levy added the frauds were ‘sophisticated’ and said he had taken active steps to verify the legitimacy of the property on which the second loan was secured by visiting the property and securing insurance before the transaction completed.
The SDT ordered him to pay a fine of £15,000 plus £35,386.90 in costs.
